A psychiatric hospital in Co Dublin is on the brink of being converted into 3,000 homes but developers will have to erase the stigma of living in a former asylum, writes Colin Coyle

Developers are taking over our asylums. St Ita’s psychiatric hospital in Portrane, Co Dublin could be transformed into a luxury residential development within five to six years, according to a consultants’ report commissioned by the Northern Area Health Board (NAHB).

If the hospital’s proposed redevelopment is a success, it could be the first of a number of Victorian psychiatric institutions to be regenerated into upmarket housing schemes.

In recent years, schools, convents, churches, mills, and even barns have been transformed into housing and now our tumbledown psychiatric homes are set to follow.

The first psychiatric hospital to be converted in Ireland was Our Lady’s Hospital on the Lee Road in Cork, which was transformed into River Towers, a scheme of 200 luxury apartments, three years ago. The development of St Ita’s, with its potential for almost 3,000 units, would dwarf this project.